Description:
Part of portfolio of 26 lithographs and accompanying book by Lawrance Thompson.
Text from accompanying book by Lawrance Thompson, 11: The Bachelor:

It was a Nantucket ship,
the Bachelor,
which had just wedged in her last cask of oil,
and bolted down her bursting hatches;
and now, in glad holiday apparel,
was joyously, though somewhat vain-gloriously,
sailing...for home...
As this glad ship of good luck
bore down upon the moody Pequod...
[with Ahab] standing on his quarter-deck,
shaggy and black,
with a stubborn gloom;
and as the two ships crossed each other's wakes -
one all jubilations for things passed,
the other all forebodings as to things to come...
"Hast seen the White Whale?" gritted Ahab.
"No; only heard of him; but don't believe in him
at all."

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